Contributing Authors

Heather Nestleroad has two associates degrees.  One in Medical Assisting and another in Marketing.  She's qualified to kiss booboos and have garage sales.  She graduated with honors and is  a stay at home mom.  She loves her husband of 15 years and her three children.  She lives in a small town in Indiana, where she enjoys reading, and writing stories about her family and small town life.

 

Bekah Freelan is the Mid-Morning producer at WBCL Radio in Ft. Wayne, IN - living out her dream job...that she didn't even know was her dream until God opened the door! God has brought about a beautiful redemption to a broken heart and she's grateful not only for the blessings, but for the difficulties that preceded them. She's learning much about grace, mercy, and embracing life to its fullest - and loving every step of the way.

Doug Wall grew up in southern Indiana.  He is currently the pastor at Warrington Nazarene Church in Indiana.  He spent the last six years starting a church plant in Huntsville, AL.  He has a wonderful wife, Karey, and three great children.

L. K. Colyer is a daughter, sister, wife, mother, worker, friend and fellow traveler trying to find who she is and who she is supposed to be.  She and her husband, Mike, live in a firehouse with their three children: Josiah, Elijah and Katherine.  By day she is a financial aid counselor, by night a wife and mother…but in her dreams she is an accomplished writer.  She has recently published her first children’s book, ‘Watch and See’ which will be released within weeks through Mirror Publishing. Mirror has also accepted another story called ‘I am Your Mommy’ which she hopes to have finished and out before Mother’s day.

Beth Vedvik is a secondary English education teacher by training and a stay-at-home mom by choice. She resides in Illinois with her husband and two young daughters. Beth is passionate about English and literature, often reading, writing, and doing crossword puzzles in her spare time. She strives daily to be the kind of wife, mother, and child that God wants her to be, knowing that there is a long – and exciting! – road ahead on that journey.

Jen Zahm is a wife, mother, tree-hugging conservative, country girl who is treading gently on her path of sustainability on her family’s small scale farm. When she is not busy home schooling, caring for children and animals, cooking, cleaning, prepping, planning, couponing, writing, baking, blogging and coming up with the next project, she can be found volunteering at her church, reading books about herbs and natural medicine and playing Word Mole.

Chris Rayment is currently employed as a Retail Marketing Specialist with about 15 different companies.  He travels to over 30 stores every month working to place products, signage, conduct audits and form relationships between the manufacturers and store management.  He is involved in directing dramas and musicals at the Marion Civic Theatre.  He resides in Marion, Indiana with his beautiful wife, Amy, and his three children.

Bree Conover Moore is the wife of her wonderful husband Scott and the mom of two beautiful girls: Lily (5) and Miriam (2). Six years ago, she surprised a lot of people and left a career as a lawyer to start a family. She is passionate about raising her daughters to be godly women, creating a nice home for her family and other issues involving parenting, birthing and breastfeeding. She struggles daily not to feel a little lost in a society that tends to label people by their jobs.  She loves spending time with her family, cooking, writing, running, playing Wii and she's always reading about some new discovery from the library or that is found online.  She received a  B.A. in Literature, Science and Arts from the University of Michigan, and a J.D. from Michigan State, specializing in legal research and writing, focused mostly in the areas of family and criminal law.

Rick McKinney is a pastor in Marion, Indiana. He has been married to his wife Jane for nearly 37 years. They have three adult children and one grandson. He is a life-long learner. He is an avid reader, loves being around the academic culture and plans to start work on his doctorate in 2011. In 2006, he and his wife Jane walked across America. They walked 2770 miles in six months praying for America and sharing their faith with thousands of people. Besides pastoring, they have worked in inner-city ministry, with the homeless and in children’s ministry. They have traveled extensively challenging Christians and churches to impact our culture with the good news of God’s kingdom.

Kristin Hand is a daughter, sister, wife and aunt. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband, Bill, an ordained Wesleyan minister. To pay the bills, she works for her alma mater as a financial aid counselor, and serves her local church as a member of the family ministry team. A mother of two cats, Kristin also is a perpetual student, currently studying Computer Information Systems to complement her undergraduate work in accounting and her MBA. In her free time, she enjoys watching NCIS, playing Wii, and going to Colts and Pacers games.


 

Kendra McEvoy is a wife and mom who is passionate about worship, music, homemaking, homeschooling and education. She graduated with a degree in Music Education from Indiana Wesleyan University in 1999 and spent two years teaching in the public school system. When her son was born in 2001, she began to stay home with him and found that it was the most fulfilling experience of her life. For almost 10 years, she has been a homemaker and stay-at-home-mom to her son and daughter. In 2005, the Lord spoke to Kendra and her husband, Eric, about the possibility of homeschooling. They began the journey of educating their children full-time in 2006 when their son began kindergarten. They haven’t looked back since. While homemaking and homeschooling provide Kendra with little time for other interests, she passionately pursues worship through a variety of musical experiences and ministry opportunities. Currently, this includes serving as the director of her church’s children’s choir and drama program as well as singing in the adult choir. She also enjoys writing, scrapbooking, crafting and cooking healthy meals from scratch.

Melissa Duckwall is a born again believer, conservative, stay-at-home wife and mom. Married to an amazing servant-leader husband named Ralph (RD). She's been married now for 8 years!  They have four beautiful blessings here on earth: Arianna (7), Benjamin (6), Cassandra (4), Edmund (2); Baby "G" due May 4, 2011; and two precious babes in heaven: Baby "D" (miscarried July '07) and Francesca Rose (stillborn 4-9-10).  She loves to sing, cook, read, write, sew, and blog.  She is currently learning about gluten-free living, eating organic/REAL foods, gardening, and herbs/herbal remedies. She homeschools and has chosen homebirth. As difficult and as trying as it can sometimes be, she can't think of anything more exciting or rewarding than being a wife and mom!

Josh Howard is currently a pastor in Wheaton, Illinois. He was born and raised in Moline, Illinois. He graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University in 1999 with a degree in Christian Ministries. He and his wife, Melissa, have been married since 1998. They have two kids: Emily, born in 2002 and Aaron, born in 2006. He loves the St. Louis Cardinals, playing tennis, reading good fiction, and spending time with his family.

 

Shaun Marshall is the Executive Pastor at the Citadel of Faith Covenant Church in Detroit, Michigan, where he oversees daily Church operations, shares preaching and teaching responsibilities with Senior Pastor Harvey Carey, and leads staff and volunteers. He is also the Founder and Principal Consultant of Marshall and Associates LLC, a consulting firm providing solutions to Churches in the areas of Leadership, Spiritual Transformation and Church Planting.

Shaun is passionately committed to helping leaders realize vision, and has a wealth of experience serving dynamic leaders in business, ministry and community development. An ordained minister, Shaun is a frequent speaker and preacher able to engage diverse audiences in thoughtful, humorous and insightful conversations about the transforming word of God. As a practitioner in strategic local church ministry, Shaun also offers training and consulting to Church leaders and is a speaker with the Willow Creek Association. He and his wife, Veronica, live in Metro Detroit.

Julia Nutter is a social work and psychology major who has been married almost 14 years. She is raising 4 children, including a set of fraternal twins. She has a blog, anutterexperience.com, where she shares about her life and the missional journey her family is on now. She also loves to travel and has started a blog, triplearning.com, to share about her travels. She is a choleric-sanguine who loves to learn, read, talk, sing, speak, write, and hang out with people. She believes change is important and that it is good to question things and look at all views and opinions to better understand your own. She has had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ for over 30 years and values that relationship above all others.